Contents

Description

The Circle tool creates a circle in the current work plane by entering two points, the center and the radius, or by picking tangents, or any combination of those. It takes the linewidth and color previously set on the Tasks tab. This tool works the same way as the Draft Arc tool, except that it stops after entering the radius.

How to use

Options

The primary use of the circle tool is by picking two points, the centre and a point on the circumference, defining the radius.

By pressing ALT, you can select a tangent instead of picking a point. You can therefore construct several types of circles by selecting one, two or three tangents.

To enter coordinates manually, simply enter the numbers, then press ENTER between each X, Y and Z component.

Press T or click the checkbox to check/uncheck the Continue button. If continue mode is on, the Circle tool will restart after you give the second point, allowing you to draw another circle without pressing the Circle button again.

Press CTRL while drawing to force snapping your point to the nearest snap location, independently of the distance.

Press SHIFT while drawing to constrain your second point horizontally or vertically in relation to the first one.

Press I or the Filled button to have the circle to appear as a face after it has been closed. This simply sets the View->Property of the Circle to "Flat lines" or "Wireframe", so it can easily be changed later.

Press ESC or the Cancel button to abort the current Line command.

The circle can be turned into an arc after creation, by setting its first angle and last angle properties to different values.

Circles, when in "Flat Lines" display mode, can display a hatch pattern, by setting their "Pattern" property below.

Properties

DataRadius: The radius of the circle

ViewPattern: Specifies a hatch pattern to fill the wire with

ViewPattern Size: Specifies the size of the hatch pattern

Scripting

The Circle tool can by used in macros and from the python console by using the following function: